


The Same Old Bitter Things

by consideritalljoy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Adult child abuse, Angst, Bordering on graphic depiction of violence, CEN, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, Eli's parents, Gaslighting, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Lysatra, Only weapon ever used is a tape dispenser, Physical Abuse, Xenophobia, with a few fluffy bits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-11-28 11:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11416644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consideritalljoy/pseuds/consideritalljoy
Summary: When Eli's parents demand he use his time off to take Thrawn with him for a visit to Lysatra, he has a rough week of anxiety and confusion.





	1. Switching Sides and Wildfire Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To have a complete context for this fic, you may want to consider reading my 3k one-shot fanfic "[ **An Illness of the Mind**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11399307)," which takes place at Royal Imperial and is considered history in this fic. You don't need the context to make sense of this, however.
> 
> Trigger warnings will be placed in the beginning notes as appropriate, with fuller explanations in the end notes so those who need the information can easily find it and those who don't won't read spoilers. If there is ever anything you find I should have warned for and didn't, or you aren't sure and want to make sure of something before reading, please comment so I can tell you/fix the issue. :)
> 
> While I write, I listen to music to set the mood. The songs that most influenced this fic are “Mean” by Taylor Swift, "Human" by Christina Perri, “Trespassing” by Adam Lambert, and “How Soon Is Now?” by The Smiths.

Two weeks off. It was like a dream come true. 

Or, it should have been.

Eli’s parents demanded he use the time to visit home, even though it would take days to travel each way and he’d only have time to stay a week. Granted, it would be the first time he’d seen them since graduating, and that was a long time ago now, and they hadn’t exactly stayed long, but… 

They wanted Thrawn to come too. 

There could only be one reason for that.

And what they wanted him to ask Thrawn to do… Now, that…

That was even worse.

But he’d promised to ask. Thrawn already knew about the proposed trip, of course. He’d agreed instantly. Hell, he even seemed maybe a little excited. Asking would kill that feeling off right quick. But he had to do it. So Eli steeled himself and walked into their shared room.

“My parents told me to ask you something before we came,” he said, wincing even though he hadn’t actually asked yet. He couldn’t back out now. 

“Very well. What was it?” Thrawn asked in return.

“Well, it’s not really a question, it’s more like, they want you to do something…” Eli stumbled around the concept. His cheeks were burning up. Hell, his whole body was burning up. “I said I’d ask, so here I am, but I can say you said no, of course, I mean, obviously. You know what? I could take the blame, too, real easy. I’ll just say I chickened out and didn’t ask. No reason to fault you for any of it that way. It’s not like it’s your fault at all. Really, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have even agreed to ask, really. But I did, so. But it’s alright. I’ll say you said no.”

“Ensign Vanto,” Thrawn said slowly. “I suggest you sit down.” He waited. Eli sat. “What is it your parents have requested I do?”

Eli gulped. “They… they want you to wear sunglasses.” There. It was out. Now he really couldn’t go back.

Eli couldn’t even imagine what Thrawn’s expression must have been. He couldn’t bear to look. “I’ll tell them I didn’t even ask. No, better. I’ll tell them I didn’t ask because you decided to go somewhere else for your time off. You won’t have to go and maybe I’ll be off the hook on this one.”

“Because they glow, I presume?” Thrawn asked in an even tone. 

“Um, kind of,” Eli started, head in his hands now. His voice was muffled by them. “Do you remember back when I was telling you all those Chiss legends? About the eyes?”

“I see,” Thrawn said, pitch lowered.

“Yeah, that,” Eli agreed. “I told them that part wasn’t real but they didn’t believe me and to be sure they wanted you to wear the sunglasses.” 

“In that case, tell them I will do so,” Thrawn said calmly. 

Eli was nauseous. “You’re kidding,” he breathed. 

“Indeed not,” Thrawn said. “Sunglasses will have no effect one way or the other to me, and will set your parents’ minds at ease. They are, in this case, victims of misinformation. If I were to object, their fears would be strengthened rather than abated. Perhaps by the end of the visit, the misinformation can be rectified.” 

Eli was not nearly as sure that his parents were “merely victims” of anything, but at the same time, Thrawn had actually agreed, and, well… he’d just as soon not have to go alone anyway. “Are you sure? You don’t have to. You really, really don’t have to.”

“I am aware of my free will in this, Ensign. Thank you. Yes, I am sure.”

This was going to be, as Thrawn himself would probably put it, an interesting trip for both of them. Working on the Blood Crow had suddenly never seemed so fun.

—

“Ok, now, remember, follow my lead. For the love of the force, don’t call me an ensign. It’ll come up no matter what but it’ll be better for everyone if you don’t start it off. Try not to talk much. Or move much. I’m sorry about this, Thrawn. Really. I can’t believe I’m doing this to you.” Eli winced when he realized how much he was rambling. 

“Once again, En- Eli, this was my choice,” Thrawn chided gently.

Eli couldn’t feel his own fingers or toes and the rest of him felt equal parts warm and stiff. He checked again to make sure he was still breathing. He was, but a little too shallowly and quickly. He drew in as much air as his lungs could hold, and breathed it all out as slowly as he could. “One more thing before we get to the house: you may want to try smiling. Now, I know Chiss don’t really do that, and I’m fine with how you normally act, but remember, my parents aren’t around non-humans very often. You do seem a little imposing at first.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Thrawn said. Eli risked a glance. It was pretty much always hard to tell how Thrawn felt about most things, but Eli was slowly learning to pick out the tiny differences in the way the Chiss moved and talked that might give away his emotion. Right now, though, Thrawn actually seemed at ease. Confident, even. As confident as he’d been the day he was brought before the Emperor. How did he keep that up, anyway?

The house was in view. The sun was just setting behind it, throwing the bales of hay into a softly glowing golden and sharpening the edge of the horizon. The sky was still hues of pink with blue at the top. 

If he hadn’t been about to walk into a disaster in the making, Eli would have been almost happy to be home. You miss things like sunsets, in space. Sometimes Eli wondered if anyone on Coruscant cared about them at all anyway. He still did. 

Thrawn wasn’t walking next to him anymore. Eli looked back. The Chiss had stopped a few paces ago to stare at the horizon. So maybe he still cared, too. Looking at the Chiss out of uniform in a red-and-black flannel shirt he insisted on wearing, blue-skinned, with all those yellow and gold shades around him, glowing red eyes staring innocently at the setting sun, Eli let himself smile. 

“I must confess, Eli, that I have never seen this many shades of yellow in one physical location,” Thrawn said when he caught Eli looking back. “My homeworld was all ice. It makes for marvels of its own, yes, but nothing like this. This is quite artistically done.”

“I’m glad you like it. I did. Well. I do,” Eli said, turning back to the sun. As it sank lower on the horizon, though, it only served to outline his childhood home. Their destination. Eli’s smile froze, then flickered for a moment before looking back to Thrawn. “Come on. They’ll wonder why we aren’t there yet.” 

Thrawn blinked twice and focused his vision back to Eli. The look of unsullied wonder in his eyes a moment earlier was replaced by the same blank, analyzing stare he always wore. As he slipped the sunglasses on, Eli’s access to those eyes disappeared entirely. It wasn’t fair. But then, his parents rarely were. 

—

“Eli, my darling, it’s been so long!” his mother cried, hugging him tightly. 

Eli hugged back tighter still. Looking over his mother’s shoulder, he could see his father standing in the doorway. Feet planted at the threshed, one hand holding onto the doorway, a gleam in his eye. Eli made eye contact and grinned. “It’s good to be back, Mom. Hey, Dad,” he said. 

His father’s gaze shifted and his eyes darkened. “Oh, right!” Eli said with a light, carefree laugh. He released his hold on his mother and moved a step to the side. “I almost forgot. I guess I don’t have to introduce you to Thrawn again since you’ve all already met.”

Thrawn bowed his head. “I am honored to be invited to stay with you and your son for the week,” he said. 

His mother’s jovial smile froze. His father’s posture remained the same, but he breathed a little deeper. It was like there was a bomb in Eli’s arms and the timer was ticking to zero. 

Eli lifted one corner of his mouth a bit in a lopsided smile, added a little more gleam to his eyes, and looked to his mother. “We decided he could stay in my room, right? If you already had dinner I could make something for him and me. It took us a while getting here, I know. It’s getting late.”

“No, no. We waited,” his father said. The gleam in his eyes was replaced by a glint. Eli’s stomach knotted itself up. He certainly wasn’t hungry. 

“Oh, really? Thanks,” he said with a slight huff of laughter in his throat. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t know what he—” his mother’s gaze flickered to Thrawn “could eat, though.”

“Well that’s no problem,” Eli assured her. “I’ve never known Thrawn to be picky and as far as I can tell, Chiss eat all the same stuff we do. Isn’t that right, Thrawn?” he asked, looking to Thrawn and making eye contact. 

“Indeed,” Thrawn affirmed.

“Oh,” his mother said flatly. “Well, come inside, Eli, and don’t forget to take off your shoes in the house. I don’t know what they teach you over in the core worlds, but here we abide by old-fashioned manners.” 

Eli chuckled. “Of course, Mom.” He removed his shoes, checked to make sure Thrawn did too, and picked up his bags. “I’ll show Thrawn where we’ll be staying and get washed up.”

He was halfway down the hall when he heard it. “Your gramma’ll be coming by tomorrow. She can’t wait to hear all about your little adventures off in space.”

“Great! We’ll talk more over dinner, alright?” Eli called.

“Alright, Eli,” his mother called back.

Eli practically shoved Thrawn the rest of the way down the hall and into his small bedroom. Nothing had changed since he’d left. His bed was still unmade. Eli couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. There were more pressing concerns.

He dropped his bags and silently ran to the door. Grasping the knob, he turned it, placed his other hand alongside the edge above the knob, guided the door to the frame, and slowly released the knob again. The door shut, he whirled around back to Thrawn, who had taken his glasses off already and looked thoroughly confused. 

Eli placed a finger to his lips and listened for a second. His father was still in the kitchen with his mother. Lowering his finger, Eli made himself breathe. 

“Eli, what’s wrong?” Thrawn asked.

“I can’t believe I was worried about this dinner,” Eli answered.

Thrawn furrowed his eyebrows. “Then what are you worried about?”

“No, you don’t understand. The dinner will still be awful; a manageable awful. But Gramma, tomorrow? Well. Try not to worry about it too much, alright? Just stay quiet like you have been. I’ll do the talking.”

“I’m not currently worried,” Thrawn replied.

“Your mistake,” Eli told him.


	2. With Just One Single Blow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: child abuse, xenophobia (more detail at end of chapter)

Eli chewed at his lip and stared at Thrawn blankly. “Here’s how this is going to work. I’ll go out first, right now, and wash. Then when I come back, you go do the same. Meanwhile, I’ll wander down into the kitchen and see if I can’t butter them up a bit. The hallway creaks on the left side more than the right, so stay away from there. If everything seems fine, come in, and we’ll work it out from there. If not… just come back here and I’ll figure it out.”

“Do you expect that things will not be ‘fine’?” Thrawn asked. 

“It’s possible, but probably not. Not yet. We did pretty alright out front just now. If we play our cards right it’ll be a rant about the Empire in general at this point, not you specifically. Just—”

“I’ll let you do the talking,” Thrawn filled in for him. 

Eli huffed a small laugh and closed his eyes for a second. “Yeah, you got it. Let’s do this.” He took one more deep breath and grasped the knob again. Rolling his shoulders back and adjusting a confident smile, Eli exited the room and shut the door behind him.

The plan went off without a hitch. A warm feeling of hope emerged in Eli’s core, but he suppressed it. There was a catch somewhere. There had to be.

“Damned pirates got away with another shipment of our goods the other week,” Eli’s father remarked bitterly, breaking the silence everyone at the table had seemingly worked so hard to cultivate over dinner.

Talk of pirates meant he was still leaving Thrawn alone, though. Pirates was a safe topic. “That’s one thing I really love about working for the Empire,” Eli said. “We get to catch some of those damned pirates so they can’t come back here to Lysatra and cause more trouble.” 

“Well tell your Empire that they aren’t doing enough,” Eli’s father growled. “For all we know, some officer somewhere is getting some kickback from them. That’s how these things work in this world, son. Honesty plays right into their hands. You have to outsmart them.”

Eli served himself from the bowl of stew in the center of the table as nonchalantly as he could and chose his words carefully. “From everything I’ve seen, the Empire does genuinely want to stop the smugglers and pirates and all them. There’s just so much space to defend that the navy gets stretched thin.” 

His father chuckled with a darkened edge to his tone. “Naive is what you are, son. How many times have I got to tell you? You always just believe whatever’s in front of you. You probably even believe whatever this alien says on pure faith, don’t you?” The stew already in Eli’s mouth served as a good way to hide his sudden gulp at the mention of Thrawn. Things had been going so well…

“You’re slow, is what you are.” Wait, attention thrown back on him? That, Eli could handle. “I’ve always seen it. As long as you can be smart enough to recognize your limits, you’ll make it alright. Try to be more than that and you’re dead in the water. If you actually think you could keep up with all the planning and core world grandeur in this new track, you're dead wrong. Out of your league. You were meant for supply.”

Eli’s muscles were going stiff, but he tensed his calves in an attempt to throw all the tension in his body onto them. Beneath the table, they were less noticeable. He needed to seem fine. He needed to seem happy. Most importantly, he needed to seem compliant. 

With the most jovial, casual tone he could fake, Eli shrugged again and said, “I got through Royal Imperial, didn’t I?”

“For better, or worse? This alien’s got the Empire wrapped around his finger.” More lies about Thrawn—spoken as though he weren’t there at all. Ignoring him was still good. Eli could work with that. 

“I’ll bet you anything they messed with your grades just like they messed with your career track. Don’t you think there for a second that you woulda stood a chance against those core world snobs. Their heads are filled with nonsense propaganda. It don’t make sense to us grounded folk. It’s not supposed to.” So now his grades weren’t his own, either. Excellent. 

Right then, his mother decided to cut in as well. “Eli, listen to us. You know we wouldn’t point these things out if we didn’t love you. We’re telling you because we care.” That, Eli didn’t doubt. Maybe they did have a point. He’d always known he would have been better in the supply track. 

Thrawn spoke.“I find that Eli’s processing speed matches or exceeds the majority of those within the navy.” Eli winced. As much as Eli appreciated Thrawn trying to defend him, speaking right then was a very bad idea. 

“Oh, do you now?” Eli’s father answered. “And just what is my son to you, anyway? We’re his family. You can bet your ass we know him better than you do.

“Why the hell does an alien—a lieutenant one at that—even have an aide? You’re planning something.” So the fire was going to Thrawn. That didn’t put Eli any more at ease; actually, his muscles tensed tighter. His breath became more shallow. His mind started running through possible scenarios and how to keep peace in each one. Eli wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep peace at all in a few of the scenarios he came up with. 

His father kept going, not leaving enough time for Thrawn to defend himself. That was probably for the best. “It’s the Empire’s fault, really. We pay our taxes like good, loyal, honest citizens, and what do those blasted politicians do? Waste it somewhere else. They told us they would keep us safe from aliens, and now look. They’ve gone and invited one into their own ranks.”

The attention turned back to Eli as his father refocused his gaze. “Next thing you know there’ll be a whole revolution, just you wait. You know what I always say: give an alien a centimeter, and they’ll take a kilo. Mark my words, Eli, you’ll watch your back if you don’t want to find a knife in it on the day your new alien friend gets tired of having a pet.”

Focus back on Thrawn. Eli’s father finished with a deepening snarl. “When you show your true colors, the Empire will wish they’d gotten you a firing squad instead of an insignia plaque.” Through it all, Thrawn’s expression remained as blank as ever. It probably didn’t help that Thrawn wasn’t letting himself be subdued, but thankfully he wasn’t really fighting, either. 

Eli squeezed his eyes shut for all of one second and fought to stay in control of his tone. “Dad, please,” he said. He edited all the anger and reproach out of his voice and was left with a tone that sounded more like a playful request. 

“Don’t interrupt your father,” his mother snapped. Eli knew better than to push it. 

That was the last time Eli tried to defend either himself or Thrawn for the rest of the night. He was riding a fine line, he knew. If his father kept it to enraged rants, maybe he could still smooth everything over before Gramma the next day. He only had a chance if he and Thrawn were both very, very careful. 

As quickly as he could after dinner, Eli made up an excuse for Thrawn to spend extra time in Eli’s room. He didn’t really relish the thought of being alone with his parents all evening, but he couldn’t risk Thrawn making an innocent mistake again. Everything so far was easily fixed, but just as easily exploded. 

This was only the first night. Things at dinner had gotten pretty tense, but everyone was still on best behavior, really. Eli winced to remember a few of the things said, but even they were forgettable. All he had to do now was make it through the rest of the night without Thrawn and be off free until the next morning. 

His mother decided to turn in first. “Good night, Eli,” she said, hugging him tightly one more time. “I’m glad you’re home, son.”

“Same here, Mom. ‘Night,” Eli said, and his mother left. 

Leaving him alone with his father. Eli winced. 

His heart rate kept rising despite all his best efforts to keep it down. His head was screaming “run,” and his refusal to listen was giving him a headache. Even breaths, Eli reminded himself. He was still standing where his mother had hugged him. His father was sitting on their couch. 

“Alone at last,” his father said to start things off. Everything had been alright up to that point, Eli told himself. Maybe it would be nothing. Just a little chat. He could handle that, right? Of course he could. Nothing to worry about. Eli’s heart rate didn’t seem to get the message. 

“I know how the chain of command works, Eli. I know you have to grovel in front of that alien, or he wouldn't think twice about screwing you over.” 

Eli didn't say anything. He just shrugged one shoulder as casually as he could. His father continued, “So I'm going to ask you here, one on one, while he's gone. Where does your loyalty lie, Eli? With us, or that alien?” So that was his angle. 

With both, Eli wanted to scream. There was no competition. Why couldn't he have both? But Eli knew that answer would only end in trouble. What would he say if Thrawn were present? Would he defend his superior? His friend? Would he still say what he knew he was about to… 

“My loyalty has only ever been with you. Thr- The alien’s just an assignment, Dad, really. I got stuck with him and I'm trying to shake him as fast as possible. It's just taking longer than I'd hoped.” In the dim light, Eli hoped his father couldn't see his cheeks burning in shame. 

“Krayt spit,” his father growled. “It's been months. You joined up to work supply and make your old man proud. You're under his spell, don't you see that? Those eyes. Why would they glow if they weren't dangerous? Your mom’s the one who said the sunglasses would be enough, but me? I'd just as soon cut them out completely.”

“He's from an ice world, Dad, it’s biolo-” 

“Did he tell you that too? I don't want you hanging around that guy after this trip, you hear me? We wanted him here to size him up and I can already see he's gotten to you.”

“I can't help it. He's an assignment. That's all.” There was a quiver in his voice. Eli tried to hide it and found he really couldn’t. 

Eli’s father got off the couch and stood, making Eli flinch. “If I see you treating him like anything more than that, you'll wish you'd never laid eyes on that alien.” 

The navy trained him to stay in control of himself. Eli always admired Thrawn’s confidence. Maybe he could draw from that too. Slowly, but without reserve, Eli said, “Maybe I did wish I'd never laid eyes on him when I first met him, but that's over now. I know better now because I know him.” 

It was the worst mistake Eli made all night. Maybe confidence just wasn’t for him. 

His father stomped forward and pushed him back with both open palms against the wall. His left hand grabbed at Eli’s shirt and kept him pinned there. His right hand ran across Eli’s chest and grasped his neck. 

“You watch yourself when you’re under my roof, boy.” The low tone meant to keep from waking his mother created a menacing effect that sent shivers up Eli’s spine. He couldn’t breathe and his father’s grip on his throat still tightened. “Do you understand?” he added.

Eli didn’t have the breath to answer and only winced at what he knew was coming.

His father released his choke hold slightly and pulled his left hand away completely. It came back in the form of a hammer strike to Eli’s jaw while his neck was still held in position. Almost simultaneously, he kicked him in the shin. “Do you understand?” he repeated.

Eli’s father released him and Eli slumped over. He felt his jaw with one hand—it didn’t seem dislocated or broken—and massaged his throat with the other. “Yes,” he croaked. 

“Good,” his father snarled. “Don’t forget it. Now go to your room.” 

Eli stumbled down the hall and opened his door. Stepping inside cautiously in order to avoid disturbing Thrawn, he turned back to shut it again softly. While he did have a lock, his parents always kept the key above the door in the hallway anyway, and if anyone actually tried to come in, having it locked would only raise suspicion, so he didn’t bother. Turning back around to face the room in what was very close to pitch black, the only light left came from the dim hall light that shone in the space between the door and the wooden floor. 

His room was small and his bed was on the far side. He’d ushered Thrawn in so quickly all those hours ago now that he hadn’t thought to offer Thrawn his bed for the week like he was planning. The Chiss had evidently found the blankets Eli left out, but was sleeping with most of them underneath him and folded into a pillow. Maybe it was part of liking the cold. 

Slowly, cautiously, Eli picked his way around his room in an attempt to not disturb Thrawn. He didn’t bother changing before climbing into bed and encasing himself tightly in the covers. His knees rubbed against his chest and his back was to the wall so that he had a good view of the door and the rest of the room. 

Staring at the dark floor to where he could just make out the faint blue of Thrawn’s skin, Eli ordered himself to calm down. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was fine. In fact, he didn’t even need to tell Thrawn what had happened. Thrawn didn’t need to know. 

He still had Gramma to worry about tomorrow, anyway. This was in the past; that was in the future. Eli tried to direct as much anxious energy as he could toward that instead. 

It was still a long time before Eli fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kinda dicey, I know, but I can take kickback for it and if there's something that you feel I haven't done justice to or should reconsider, you're welcome to leave comments about it. Please remember that this is chapter 2 of 7 and that the entirety of this chapter is written solely from Eli's perspective. With that in mind, if you have any comments, I would love to hear any and all of them. ❤
> 
> Trigger Warning Explanations:
> 
> Child abuse: Both parents engage in gaslighting. Eli's father pins him against a wall in a choke hold, hammer strikes his jaw, and kicks him. Nothing is broken. 
> 
> Xenophobia: Thrawn is pretty much exclusively referred to as an alien and at one point Eli's father says he'd "rather the Empire had offered him a firing squad than an insignia plaque." 
> 
> Lastly, if there is something I should have added a warning for and didn't, tell me what that thing is and I'll add it. I'm writing both about things I've personally experienced and things I haven't, and if I've made any mistakes I definitely want to make it right.


	3. Words Like Knives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is particularly dedicated to moomkin/lmhersch as her job takes her farther away from the internet than I think anyone in the Thrawn fandom would like. Sorry your gift is another downer chapter, but, you're the one who picked "the angst fic." ❤ ❤ ❤
> 
> Trigger warning: Xenophobia (more detail at end of chapter)

_One fact that a warrior must always be cognizant of is that the galaxy is fundamentally unfair. While a new circumstance may present itself as merely unfair due to faulty or incomplete data, truth alone will likely not serve as a mode for reconciliation. The reason for this is that people are themselves illogical, and may not always accept new truth in place of old lies. Once every attempt at correcting misinformation has been completed and the conflict still remains, a warrior has two options: do something, or do nothing._

When Eli woke, Thrawn was sitting on the floor against one of the walls, folded blanket propped between his back and the wood, scrolling through a datapad. How long he’d been awake was anyone’s guess.

Eli rubbed his jaw and massaged his throat. His shin throbbed, but it wasn’t the problem. Legs were easily hidden. He tried to clear his throat like he was only just waking up, but his attempt ended in a minor coughing fit, so the cover probably didn’t look too convincing. He couldn’t see himself, but he guessed the bruising had started. 

“Good morning, Eli,” Thrawn said in response to the coughing. He didn’t put the datapad down, but did look over. 

“Morning,” Eli answered. Thankfully, he could speak. It was painful, but he could do it. If he was careful and drank a lot of water, maybe he could choke through enough to sound normal. 

Without moving, Thrawn asked, “What happened last night?”

“Nothing,” Eli said. He winced. The answer had come too fast. 

Thrawn’s blank stare took on a faintly concerned sheen. “Your throat begs to differ.”

“What time is it?” Eli asked. 

“9:38,” Thrawn replied, checking the datapad he was still holding open. “What happened last night?” he repeated.

“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.” Eli sat up in bed but kept the covers pulled around him. 

Thrawn didn’t look back down. “Who hurt you?”

“No one.” Too fast again. 

“Krayt spit,” Thrawn retorted.

Eli let a slight edge creep into his voice. “Thrawn, no.”

Both Thrawn’s eyebrows raised and he tilted his head slightly forward. “Eli. It was your father, wasn’t it?”

And he’d actually thought he’d be able to keep the secret. He should have known Thrawn would see the bruises and then refuse to let it go. “It’s fine,” Eli assured him.

“No, it isn’t.”

Throwing off the covers and walking across the room, Eli found a set of new clothes at the top of the bag he still hadn’t unpacked. Thrawn didn’t need to see his leg. He could change in the refresher. Did he still have the concealer? He really should have thought to bring some. Hopefully the old one would still look convincing. 

Eli walked all the way to the door before turning back to Thrawn. He contorted his face into as stern a glare as he’d ever worn around the Chiss. He didn't have much time. One shot to get it through his head. To keep peace. 

“Leave it, Thrawn. Please. For me if no one else. No, for all the people you want to help, too. The evil, remember? You won’t be able to help anyone if you’re behind bars—or worse—and I can tell you right now, if you try to start anything? Anything at all? You won't be the winner in court.”

He turned his back on Thrawn before the Chiss could reply and shut the door again behind him. He’d figure it out, right? To let it go? Eli was starting to regret bringing Thrawn at all. Alone, he could maintain some order. Thrawn was a wild card. 

Eli made sure Thrawn wasn’t present when his grandmother first walked through the door. 

“Oh, my Eli!” she cried when she saw him. 

Eli ran up and hugged her. “Hey, Gramma,” he said. No fear in his voice. 

The longer she didn’t let him pull away, the harder it was to keep his heart rate down. Hugs were vulnerable. So close, breathing was very noticeable. Heart rates were, too. He knew how to end it, though. And it would certainly move things along. “I have someone for you to meet,” he said in her ear. 

She immediately released him and stepped away. Her eyes squinted nearly closed. “I heard about the alien you brought here. Well, then. Where is he?”

“Oh, just in back. Hey, Thrawn?” Eli called down the hall. He’d asked Thrawn to wait out of sight until called. After their conversation earlier, Thrawn seemed ready to stand down and follow Eli’s lead. It only took a few seconds before he came forward, waiting for a signal on what to do next, eyes focused on Eli alone.

His grandmother screamed. 

Eli was so startled that he broke eye contact with Thrawn to look back at his grandmother. “What?” he asked.

“Step away from him, you brute!” she screamed again, wagging her cane in Thrawn’s direction. 

“…What?” Eli repeated. 

“You didn’t tell me the Chiss would be roaming this house free. He could do anything to anyone and be done with us before the authorities could get here.”

Eli’s voice was level. “Thrawn isn’t going to hurt anyone,” he assured her. 

His grandmother’s gaze shifted between Thrawn’s chest and Eli’s eyes as if she wanted to keep an eye on both but was too afraid to look at Thrawn’s face. “All it takes is a look. Don’t you remember anything?”

“The stories are wrong. And Mom already made him wear the sunglasses anyway.” Why was it always about the eyes specifically? Eli was getting tired of hearing the same complaints, so he could only imagine how Thrawn felt about it. 

That didn’t abate any fears. “You think a centimeter of tinted plastic is enough to stop a Chiss? It’s doing nothing to his vision. They won’t be enough.” Eli wanted to throw up his hands and be done with it, really. He couldn’t win and neither could Thrawn. Why had he ever thought this would be a good idea?

Thrawn’s gaze was still on him. “Should I exit, Eli?” he asked as quietly as possible. 

“Oh, no,” his grandmother said. “If he’s got to be here at all, I want him where I can see him.”

“Maybe not, then,” Eli answered. 

They were at a stalemate. Thrawn didn’t move and said in a completely even tone, “Unfortunate as it may seem, I am unable to adjust science to suit this circumstance.”

Eli’s eyes pleaded “no” and hoped Thrawn would get the message. 

His grandmother picked up on the sarcasm in Thrawn’s words and, unsurprisingly, amplified the intent. “You snap at me one more time and I’m calling in the authorities right now.” Barely out of the gate. They had a whole day of this ahead of them.

How good was Thrawn at reading human facial expressions? Eli screamed “please” with his face as overtly as he possibly could and hoped Thrawn would remember what Eli’d told him earlier. 

Again, Thrawn didn’t move. “If it is my ability to see that is causing the problem, perhaps if that ability were temporarily removed, the issue could be resolved.” 

Eli was stunned. An hour ago he’d shut the Chiss down for mentioning his bruises, and now Thrawn was willing to forfeit his sight for a day just to please those same people. “You don’t-”

Thrawn cut in. “Have you any long strips of cloth?”

As much as Eli hated it, Thrawn was the one who’d have to deal with it, so if Thrawn was willing, Eli had to be willing to. “Yes. One second.” He stepped back to find something, but his grandmother wasn’t done yet. 

“Seems like another trick, to me. I don’t want to see you leave him alone. Do you hear me, Eli? Not while I’m in this house. Not while any of the rest of you are in it, neither.” Willing to let it pass, then. 

Eli ducked out of the room for a few seconds, taking Thrawn with him. The linen closet was only a few steps away, so there wasn’t enough privacy to speak. His parents and grandmother continued their conversation. “We told Eli not to have anything to do with him right from the start, but did he listen?” his mother said. Eli tried to tune it out, but knew it was a risk to not know everything being said. 

When Eli found a cloth that would suit as a blindfold, Thrawn took off the sunglasses and the two locked eyes for a moment. Eli felt his heart hit his stomach when all he saw in Thrawn’s eyes was trust. He mouthed “I’m sorry,” but Thrawn only took the cloth from him and tied it around his eyes himself. 

Eli positioned himself in front to give Thrawn a chance at following him blindly and the two walked back to the front room, where his grandmother immediately directed her attention back to him. 

“You’ll regret disrespecting your parents like that one day, boy. In my day, lads like you wouldn’t have been allowed to act how you have and get away with it. No, sir. That’s the problem with this generation. You’ve all gone soft. Think you’re entitled. That you don’t got to listen to nobody who don’t say what you want to hear.”

Next to her, Eli’s father nodded and jutted a thumb toward Eli as his gaze went to his mother. “Just what I’ve always told him. Really, he should be grateful we took him back at all after he went and befriended an alien.” 

“I don’t think I would have been so forgiving in your position,” she said. 

The rest of the day wasn’t much better. The attention went in a circle from Thrawn, to Eli, to ignoring them both, and then starting all the way over. Thrawn said maybe two sentences all day, each half as soft as he usually spoke. 

During dinner, Thrawn was relegated to eating in the kitchen while the others went to the dining room table. He finished must faster than they did and sat patiently in a chair in the corner of the kitchen, far removed from the scene but still visible. 

Eli really had no idea how he was taking it so well, but was about ready to offer worlds to him in gratitude. 

It happened after dinner. Eli was just thinking how close they all were to everything being over and done with, so of course it had to happen then. It wasn’t Thrawn’s fault, really. He’d only been at the Vantos’ house for less than a day, and had really been doing quite well blindfolded. 

It wasn’t Thrawn’s fault that his foot caught on the rug right next to the heirloom hutch. 

When he tripped, he reached out his hand to grasp the nearest large object he came into contact with. Unfortunately, that was where the hutch came into the picture. His fingers caught the edge of the wood, and he stabilized himself. The hutch had barely moved, but the cups and plates inside it rattled. And then a single saucer fell. 

Both Mrs. Vantos screamed at the same time. 

“You’re going to wish you’d never set foot on this planet,” his grandmother screamed. 

Eli was going to be sick, but he had to save Thrawn first. Running to Thrawn, Eli scooped up the broken porcelain around him and touched Thrawn’s arm to tell him to stay put. “He didn’t mean it, Gramma. I swear. He just tripped. It’s only one saucer.” 

It wouldn’t be enough. He had to think fast. Pull attention back to him. “Remember that time I broke the cup a few years ago? We still had one extra saucer from that. Now we have a matched set again, right?” 

Eli’s father stood up. Eli winced. They were basically in public, right? He wouldn’t do anything. To him. Eli’s gaze shifted back to Thrawn, who hadn’t moved. 

“You paid your due for that. He hasn’t.”

“I would be more than happy to reimburse the cost of the dish,” Thrawn said. Eli winced. Thrawn only thought he was helping, of course. He didn’t mean any of this. 

“You can’t reimburse something that’s irreplaceable!” his grandmother screeched. “But you wouldn’t know about that, would you? To you it’s all moves and countermoves.”

“What does that even mean?” Eli asked. “He’s sorry, alright? He didn’t mean for this to happen. He tripped. I swear, that’s all.”

“You’ll hold your tongue if you know what’s good for you,” hissed his father. Eli winced and waited for the blow. His father stayed put. The blow didn’t come. Eli made himself breathe, thought it was still shallow. 

“Eli, take a second to think. Your father is right. You’re forgetting yourself,” his mother pleaded quietly. Eli obeyed. 

“You listen to me, Eli,” his grandmother told him in a less enraged, but authoritative tone. “Don’t think for a second that he’s innocent. The Chiss are a barbarian race through and through. Strength is all they care about. You and me, Eli, we appreciate things like that cabinet. The beauty, the art. The history and family legacy. To him, those things are no more than weaknesses. Imagine that, Eli. A race where looks can kill. What kind of a culture could such creatures ever develop?”

Eli wasn’t sure if he was about to laugh or cry. Possibly both, actually. Thrawn, not understand art? Or legacy? Thrawn, barbaric? It was too ridiculous. She couldn’t possibly believe all that. It would have been hilarious if Eli didn’t know perfectly well that she did. And that authorities were only a call away. 

She wasn’t done. “They aren’t like us, Eli. We’re good, moral people, and we’ve protected you from the worst of this galaxy out of our love for you. You're naive. You don't know what you're saying. Believe me, you'd change your tune if you understood.”

“I know enough to know that Thrawn isn't like that.” The words were out. He couldn’t take them back. Thankfully, they’d come out sounding more petulant than defiant. Almost no more than a pitiful whisper, really. Hopefully they’d see it that way. 

His grandmother’s tone had a sharper edge, but for the most part didn’t chance. She thought she was explaining something new to him. She didn’t realize he’d heard all the same things over and over ever since Royal Imperial. “They’re masters of manipulation. Half the time he's probably lying through his teeth. You know we’d never lie to you, Eli. We'd never try to hurt you. Who are you going to trust? Us, your own family, who loves you more than life? Or this alien?”

Unlike the other times he’d dealt with people telling him that Thrawn was lying to him, his grandmother had real power over him. He couldn’t just try to ignore her. It was just like last night. Back then he’d wondered what he’d say if Thrawn were present. Lucky him—he was about to find out. 

It wasn’t exactly the same. His father had asked who he was loyal to. This was who he trusted. They were all just misinformed, right? They would never actually try to lie to him. “I do trust you. But, those stories- They're really old. Have you ever considered that, maybe, some of them are a bit… outdated?” 

“My parents told them to me, and their parents told it to them, and back on through generations. Those stories are heirlooms, just like these dishes. Our family preserves them. Who do you think was lying? It all comes down to that, Eli. Family don't lie. Aliens do.” Full circle back to the dish problem. 

When his grandmother’s gaze went back to Thrawn, Eli winced. “You! Why are you here? You left your family for it. You left your whole world. Even an animal knows to stay with its pack. You had a reason for leaving. Don't deny it! The Chiss are prideful above all. You want glory. The glory of attacking innocents just because they don't look like you.” The irony of the last statement wasn’t lost on Eli, but there wasn’t anything he could do. Telling them about the exile would only change the argument, not the feeling behind it. 

Next to him, Thrawn stirred slightly. “My people… don't believe in preemptive strikes.” No one but Eli would notice the hesitation and sorrow in his voice. He’d stayed so calm through all of this. Eli wondered if his grandmother had actually found a way to pierce Thrawn’s confident shell. 

“That's a lie. You'll take us all out and they'll hail you as a hero when you go back. Why else would you be here? Conquest, that's what. You're nothing but a threat to the galaxy. A threat we thought were gone forever.” 

Thrawn didn’t answer that. Eli was frozen in place. The shattered dish in his hand somehow wasn’t the center of attention anymore, so there was that to be thankful for. 

Somehow he found his voice and tensed through the pain of speaking again with his injured throat. Adjusting his tone to mimic his father’s, he said with an irritated sigh, “Just let me take him where he can’t do any more damage tonight, yeah?”

“Fine,” his mother said. No one protested. Eli gently nudged Thrawn’s wrist for him to follow. Eli held his breath the whole way.

When they were back in Eli’s room, Thrawn took off the blindfold and blinked slowly. “This has been an interesting day,” he said softly, hold eye contact with Eli.

Eli didn’t flinch from him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We will discuss the matter later if the feeling persists. For now, however, I believe you have somewhere to be.”

Eli nodded. “Right. Yeah. Later, maybe. Or, well. Maybe tomorrow. Or… I don’t know. We’ll talk about it though, alright? I mean that. I have to go. I’m sorry.”

He slipped back out the door before Thrawn could respond. For the rest of the night, he was in a kind of daze. Not that he wasn’t paying attention; he was far too on edge for that. It got later and later and his grandmother seemingly refused to leave. 

Talk shifted to Thrawn a few times. Never good. Eli stayed quiet and hoped it would pass. As long as Thrawn was safely back in his room, Eli could take anything. 

When his grandmother finally did leave, Eli convinced his mother to stay up a while longer so that the three of them could spend more time together. He still had some convincing to do. Slowly, with many asides to talk about other less important things, Eli got his mother to agree that the sunglasses really would be enough for Thrawn. 

“Gramma’s just a little paranoid, don’t you think?” he asked when his father was in the refresher and he had his mother alone for a moment. Once she was on his side, he had a chance, but if he had to convince both parents together, he didn’t have one at all. 

She agreed. More importantly, when his father came back, she got him to agree as well. Eli’s bruises were throbbing, his eyelids were heavy, and his brain was getting foggy. He couldn’t perform at peak capacity anymore and it was dangerous to stay in the common areas. As quickly as he could, he left for the night. 

When he finally got back to his room, Thrawn was already asleep on the floor again. Eli crawled into bed and found that he was tired enough to start falling asleep immediately for once. His eyes stared out where Thrawn would be if not for the dark and his last thought before unconsciousness was “I don’t deserve you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning Explanations
> 
> Xenophobia: Thrawn is blindfolded due to a fear of his eyes, is segregated during meal times, and is threatened with calling authorities (though that doesn't actually happen).


	4. Down That Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Child abuse (more detail at end of chapter)

As Eli suspected, there was no time for him to talk to Thrawn the next morning. His mother came in bright and early to wake him and ask for help around the house. Eli dutifully got out of bed and didn’t mention how few hours he’d actually slept since getting to Lysatra. He’d worked on less sleep than this before, anyway. He’d be fine. 

His father was gone at work until late, so Eli let himself relax ever so slightly. He could talk to Thrawn later on. In fact, he had an idea about that. 

“Dad won’t need the speeder two days from now, right? Isn’t that the day he gets picked up?” Casual, casual… his mother was always the easier one to convince, but that didn’t mean asking to borrow the landspeeder for a day would be easy. 

“Yes. Why?” his mother asked without looking up from the dishes she was washing. 

Eli dried one more and put it away before answering, just to look a little more like he didn’t really care one way or the other. “I was thinking of taking Thrawn out to a few places that day, if that’s okay with you.” 

She tossed her head to either side in thought and grimaced a bit. “Can Thrawn be trusted?” his mother asked. 

“Yes,” Eli answered without a moment’s hesitation. 

His mother sighed heavily and washed a few more dishes while the considered it. “I guess you’ve been alone with him before. Only a few hours. And tell me where you’re going beforehand. Be careful, especially around him. You drive, alright?”

“Yes, absolutely. Thanks! You won’t regret it, Mom. I promise.” Eli’s relaxed posture got more genuine. It was always his father he had to fear, he remembered. His mother was on his side. She never stopped his father, but then, neither did he. Could he really blame her for not provoking him more?

“You can take the speeder, but, Eli,” his mother said gently. “Do you remember when your father and I sent you off to join the imperial navy that morning? We all piled into the speeder and I made us both sit in the back so I could hold onto you the whole way.” She smiled in memory. 

As Eli remembered it, that wasn’t at all what had happened. To his mind, what happened was that his father needed to go into town for work anyway and dropped him off on the way. His mother had stayed home. 

She’d definitely gotten teary that morning, though. Eli thought he remembered hugging her goodbye at the front door. Was it his memory that was wrong? Had that been at the station? His mother would never lie to him. It couldn’t be her. He was remembering wrong. 

“Do you remember what I told you then? Maybe you’ve forgotten. It was a long time ago now,” his mother continued. “You’re innocent yet, I said. Don’t believe everything you’re told. Remember what we’ve taught you and you’ll turn out alright, I told you.” 

Eli couldn’t quite remember the details of that conversation, but it sounded right. He must have just forgotten it all. How could he forget something like that? Maybe all the being singled out had gotten to his head after all. He’d always known he wasn’t prepared to be stuck with Thrawn. 

“I just get confused sometimes is all,” he said. “I’ve been with Thrawn a while now, and he’s never once done anything to make me think he wasn’t genuine.”

“People lie out there in that big wide galaxy. Not like here. Force bless him, your father always wanted to keep you safe from all that. I worried that one day we wouldn’t be around to protect you and you’d fall into something bad just because you only see the good in people.” She sighed and wiped her hands on a towel before drawing him closer. Resting her face in his chest, Eli felt her smile. “I wish I could keep you safe forever.”

Eli’s memories conflicted. He wasn’t sure which to believe, but he knew that she wouldn’t lie, so the only logical thing to do was to believe her. Really, all his parents had ever tried to do was keep him safe. Keeping him at home and away from his peers only served to keep him away from all the delinquents out there. In the navy, Eli had already seen plenty of those. 

Really, the angry hits from his father were in Eli’s best interest too. They had taught him respect and kept him in line. No one’s parents were perfect. These ones were a little xenophobic, but so was everyone else. 

They were right that he should be cautious about Thrawn too, even. What did he know about the Chiss? A few worrisome stories that one alien said weren’t true. Even in Thrawn’s story, he was an exile of his own people. Eli was willing to believe that Thrawn was more complex and thoughtful than his parents gave him credit for, and he was most certainly brilliant. But could he be trusted so completely? 

“I’ll be careful, Mom. I promise,” he said, hugging her back. 

“Your father will be home soon. I’d better get dinner ready,” she said, and pulled back. “I love you, Eli.”

“I love you, too.” 

The dinner went over as smoothly as could be expected, which was to say, not very smoothly at all. He picked at his food and stayed as unnoticeable as possible. It could have been worse, Eli decided. He still wasn’t sure what he thought about Thrawn or some of what his mother had said. He wasn’t really ready to believe Thrawn had some master plan to screw him over, but then, he was pretty naive, and definitely a follower, not a leader. 

Eli was still mulling all this over when things got tense again after dinner. He barely paid attention as his father ranted more about aliens, then pirates, then aliens again. Thrawn’s name was mentioned a few times, but a quick glance at Thrawn proved that he wasn’t really being affected. 

“Stay with your own kind!” Eli’s father stood and Eli snapped back to attention. The focus was on Thrawn. What had he missed? It didn’t seem good. “You aliens, you never stop, do you? You’ve killed off whole systems, whole regions of humans just because you like to. Just in the name of ‘more.’ Always more. Well this time, we won’t let you! You can’t take what we’ve built this time! I don’t know why the Empire let you into their ranks but I sure as hell can’t wait until they figure out their mistake and get you what you deserve.” 

Eli still didn’t know what to believe anymore. He still didn’t know what to think. Was Thrawn playing him? Did his father really have his best interest at heart? Did it really matter right then? Thrawn hadn’t done anything yet. It was definitely safer to treat him as guilty until proven innocent, but was it right? 

Eli breathed in deeply. “I don’t think you should treat him like this. You’re my family, but Thrawn is my friend,” he stated. His voice was level. His throat was rough and constricted, and his pitch was lower than normal, but his tone didn’t waver. He tried to look his father in the eye as he said it, but found himself avoiding the gaze. 

Thrawn had no such difficulty and faced his father directly, mouth in the same passively straight line it always was. There was no emotion in that stare—it simply existed, and really, that was more than enough resistance to trigger everything that came after. 

“If I ever see you defend this alien against your own family members again, that’ll be the end of it. Right then and there. That’ll be the end,” his father warned. He took one step forward. His tone held something more than anger now. Usually his anger manifested in shouts and lashing out. This time it built up inside him. 

Eli winced. This happened sometimes. The anger couldn’t stay inside his father forever. When it came out, it would come out in a flood. Did he regret standing up this time? Maybe. Everything could have been fine if he hadn’t tried. None of this had to happen this way. Everything that was about to happen… it was all Eli’s fault. 

“Eli, leave,” Thrawn said slowly, not taking his eyes off Eli’s father. 

“But—”

“Eli. Go,” Thrawn repeated in nearly the same voice, but with a slight edge. 

Eli looked between his father and Thrawn. What was Thrawn thinking? As the Chiss’s shoulders ever so slightly slumped forward, Eli became even more confused. After all Thrawn had put up with in order to help Eli keep peace, surely he wouldn’t fight now. His posture wasn’t suggesting it, either. Eli was frozen in place. He didn’t know what to do. 

“Eli,” Thrawn repeated one more time. This time, the tone changed. The authority was still there, but in addition… something else. Some form of caring. A request more than a command. 

Eli obeyed, and left the room. 

When he got back to his room, he still wasn’t sure what to do. He tried listening at the door, but all he could hear were muffled voices so far. At least they were only voices. 

It was late. Eli hadn’t slept much in the last few nights. He contemplated waiting up for Thrawn to come back, or venturing back out to find him, but thought better of the latter. 

His mistake lay in getting in bed. He did it because in the back of his mind, somehow maybe it seemed safer, but the bed had another effect on him. In the dimly lit room, his mind started to shut off. He tried to fight it. 

If Thrawn needed him, he needed to be available. 

What was Thrawn doing?

Could Thrawn be trusted? 

That sounded like a question he’d heard before. Eli’s near-unconscious mind tried to place the voice.

Oh, right. His mother. At the time, Eli had said yes. Did he still believe that? 

Thrawn hadn’t come back. He still couldn’t hear anything. 

Eli fought sleep off, but eventually it took him just the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning Explanations 
> 
> Child abuse: Eli's mother gaslights him regarding memories as well as his stance on Thrawn. Eli begins to be deceived. His father makes a threat that could be perceived as a death threat.


	5. The Cycle Ends Right Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Child abuse, xenophobia, eating disorders (more detail at end of chapter)

_Emotions are fleeting, but powerful. When an emotion besets a person, that person’s perception becomes colored by the emotion being experienced. At times, this altered perception can be useful. More often, it is a hinderance. The warrior predetermines as many principles as possible in the form of a moral code to refer to in moments of decision, thus guarding against emotion. When these moral codes dictate a single course of action, the warrior is duty-bound to follow, accepting any resulting consequence. To compromise one’s code would be to sacrifice one’s integrity._

The next morning, it was impossible for Eli not to notice the bruises. 

Thrawn calmly scrolled through a datapad exactly like every other morning, but Eli fought to keep the panic out of his voice. “What happened?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Thrawn replied without looking up. 

“Who hurt you?” Eli pressed. 

Thrawn raised his eyes to meet Eli’s and held the gaze for a second before saying in a gentle yet commanding tone, “I am fine, Eli.”

“Krayt spit,” Eli retorted. Thrawn didn’t answer and looked back down to the datapad. 

Eli’s mother called him from the kitchen, telling him to come out. 

“One second, Mom!” he answered, throwing off his blankets. While he got ready for the day, he kept talking to Thrawn, though in Thrawn’s mind it seemed that the conversation had already ended. “You aren’t fine. I don’t know what happened but we’ll talk about it later. I got Mom to let us borrow the landspeeder tomorrow, so we can take a few hours away from here. Force knows we can’t hold any real conversations in this place.”

“That sounds agreeable,” Thrawn answered. Eli rolled his eyes at how vague Thrawn was being. What had he done last night? Had his father given him those bruises? What had Thrawn given his father in return?

How the hell had Eli let himself fall asleep?

He kept asking himself those questions for the rest of the day. He still didn’t know what had happened the night before. Everything was normal. His mother was cheerful. His father came home from work that night in a reasonable mood. Thrawn stayed quiet as always. Yes, things got tense at different points, but Eli continued to smooth things over. 

Everything was the same, except for that one glaring difference. Thrawn had gotten those bruises from somewhere. Eli needed to know where. 

Thrawn didn’t wake him the next morning until he woke up of his own accord. That was luxury enough for Eli, but when he woke up enough to remember that it was the day he was going to spend outside his house, his excitement rose. It dampened a bit when he remembered all he and Thrawn would need to discuss while they were out, but as he left the house toward noon with Thrawn in tow, waving goodbye to his mother and leaving his hometown long behind him as he sped toward the open wilderness, Eli felt actually free. 

“170 klicks, we got a fully powered energy cell, it’s pretty damn light out, and we’re wearing sunglasses,” he muttered under his breath. 

“What is our destination?” Thrawn asked. 

“For me to know and you not to,” Eli answered. They really were on a time crunch conversationally, but he couldn’t help himself. He cranked the radio and ignored everything around him for a solid half hour. How did Thrawn feel about his choice of song? Eli wasn’t sure he cared. They could switch to whatever he wanted on the way back. 

He glanced at Thrawn out of the corner of his eye. The Chiss was calmly sitting at attention next to him, eyes facing forward, no expression. The sunglasses that caused so much turmoil at home were simply practical out in the afternoon Lysatran sun. “How you doing over there?” he asked, shouting over the music.

“I’m fine,” Thrawn answered. 

Eli turned the volume down to facilitate speaking. “You keep saying that. I don’t think you mean it.”

“Do you assume I’m lying?” Thrawn asked. 

Eli tossed his head around as he considered how best to answer the question. “Maybe not. But then, I never know what to think. What’s your working definition of ‘fine,’ anyway? Let’s start there.”

“A logical starting point,” Thrawn agreed. “When I tell you I am fine, I mean that regardless of any present discomfort, I am capable of continued wellbeing in the circumstance and require no intervention.”

“So ‘fine’ means ‘uncomfortable,’” Eli clarified, lowering his tone and with a slight edge. 

“Within reason, yes,” Thrawn answered. “It means that you shouldn’t worry.”

“If that’s what you mean, just say that instead. ‘Fine’ is supposed to mean ‘comfortable,’ not ‘uncomfortable within reason.’ What does ‘within reason’ even mean, anyway?”

“This visit was never meant to be ‘fine’ in that sense. It was clear from the beginning that your parents resent me; it is not the most comfortable thing for me, but it is well within my capabilities to manage.” 

“I didn’t invite you here to see what you could take within any reason,” Eli retorted. “I’m not really sure why I did it, to be honest. Maybe I just didn’t want to come alone. Alright, maybe that’s all of it. I don’t know.”

“I am and have been aware of that,” Thrawn said. There was no change in his tone or demeanor. “I came for dual purposes. One was to investigate whether or not your parents could be convinced of alien goodwill, as you have. I have determined that such will not be possible, though I do not regret the endeavor.”

“What was your first clue?” Eli asked dryly. 

“There were several signs, but none so heinous as to close the debate entirely. I dislike social maneuvering, Eli. You know this,” Thrawn said, resting an arm along the side of the speeder. “After several days here, I determined that the time had come to ask your parents openly.”

It clicked. “What happened last night?” Thrawn didn’t answer for a few extra seconds. Eli’s heart rate rose as he suddenly realized that he already knew the answer. “You didn’t. He wouldn’t,” he breathed. It was a lie, of course. No one involved actually believed his father wouldn’t. 

Eli’s peripheral vision caught Thrawn’s nod. “I told your parents a simplified version of the truth behind my role in the imperial navy, and your part in that role. I told them that I was willing to part on less than favorable terms when we leave in a few days if that was their desire and that I would not feel their dislike keenly.”

“That didn’t go over real well, did it,” Eli asked. It wasn’t a question. 

“No, but it was not expected to. It was merely the introduction to the conversation I wished to have with them. I wished to discuss you.”

A sudden headache. Eli’s voice came out in a squeak. “Me?”

“Yes. I will hold a similar discussion with you now. I—”

“Hold up. We can talk about that part later. Right now, more important— Where did the bruises come from? It was Dad, wasn’t it? How is he even still breathing?” Thrawn was way more trained in fighting than Eli’s father. Thrawn wouldn't have attacked first, but he was still Chiss. He wouldn’t have just laid down and taken it. 

“I did not retaliate,” Thrawn said, even tone intact. Like he had just told Eli the time rather than reveal that he’d let Eli’s father beat him up. 

Eli calmed himself down by focusing on the road for a minute. Thrawn didn’t move. Had he heard right? What did that even mean? “You— You what?” Eli asked. 

“I was well aware of the risk when I made the decision to have the encounter. As I expected, after I spoke, your father threatened me, but in your absence, proceeded to step forward as well. I did not back down. He threw the first blow, and when I did nothing, threw another. This continued in heightening intensity until he was satisfied. He said he did not desire the paperwork associated with murder.”

Eli inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly until no air was left in his lungs. “Remember what I said at Royal Imperial, about the game the cadets would play with you?”

Thrawn nodded. “Precisely. A warrior must choose his battles. I chose against this one. That is all. I am fine,” he repeated, echoing his first statement. 

A surge of anger. “Why did you send me out? I could have stopped this. I should have been there to stop this. What’s your play?” Eli found himself shouting the last words. 

“My play?” Thrawn asked innocently. 

Eli sighed. It was impossible to stay angry with Thrawn. “Like a plan. Strategy. What were you trying to accomplish by sending me out?” 

“I see. I knew I was going to speak to your parents about you bluntly and did not wish to embarrass you by speaking of you in the third person with you present. Furthermore, I was relatively certain the conversation would end violently, and did not desire you to be on hand if I was right.”

“It’s not like I haven’t dealt with either of those things before,” Eli huffed. “They’re my parents. I should have stayed.” 

“It was my decision to speak with them openly. You were clearly unwilling to hold such a blunt discussion yourself, and I did not desire to drag you into one that I caused.” 

“We’re almost there,” Eli said as they passed a sign. He mulled the conversation over in his head as the now-subdued music played in the background. It was a lot to take in. “You said ‘dual purposes,’” he remembered out loud. “What else did you come for?”

Thrawn didn’t skip a beat. “To support you.” 

More silence. Eli pulled over. “This is it,” he said. 

Thrawn looked around. “This is what?” he asked. “It looks much the same as the last 169 klicks.”

Eli got out of the speeder. He pointed to the small hill they were parked at the base of. It wasn’t really a hill so much as a slight incline. “Over there looks different,” he explained.

Thrawn squinted his eyes toward the horizon. “I see,” he said. Eli was fairly certain he didn’t “see” anything at all. 

Eli didn’t quite run, but definitely quickened his pace, leaving Thrawn to follow. 

When he got there first, he looked back in anticipation. The sudden shift in Thrawn’s eyes when he saw it was more than enough payoff for the trip. How could eyes that always glow sparkle so brightly? 

“It’s quite expansive,” Thrawn remarked. His tone was still calm, but forcibly so, like there was a lid of calm holding back a well of exuberance. 

Eli broke into a smile that grew into an unguarded laugh. “You could say that.” 

The cliff at their feet fell a klick down and expanded into a canyon countless klicks wide. The dusty ground and muted green shrubs that made up most of Lysatra’s terrain was cloven in two to reveal horizontal streaks of reds and oranges, blanketed somewhat in soft greens, dotted in green shrubs, and framed by tiny yellow and purple flowers along the ridge. 

“My thought was we could kind of just walk around for a while and keep talking, if that works with you,” Eli explained. 

Thrawn wasn’t taking his eyes off the canyon. “We don’t have things like this on Csilla,” he said, completely ignoring Eli.

“I guess you wouldn’t.” The detour was costly and their time was short, but Eli could hardly begrudge Thrawn time to stare at the main attraction he’d taken him to. 

“We do have glaciers that are similar. The light reflects off it iridescently. This is much different.”

“I’ll bet. Wanna see it from other angles?” Eli tried again to get Thrawn moving. 

Thrawn walked to the right with his eyes still fixated on what was then his left. “In and of itself, art holds no meaning. The motivation for art lies in representation of some object. Images of those objects are not the objects themselves, but merely representations of them. Through those representations, one may learn both about the object on which the art was based as well as the artist who represented it.”

“Meaning?” Eli asked. 

Thrawn stopped again. “Art depicts truths, Eli, but they are the truths of the one who paints them. The only way to experience the truth of the object itself is to experience the object without an artist’s interference. Only then can one discover that object’s truth for one’s self.”

“What truth do you see?” Eli asked. 

“I am not yet sure,” Thrawn answered. “I may not be for a long while yet.” 

“Do you mind if we keep talking about the stuff we said in the speeder?” Eli pressed. 

“Not at all,” Thrawn said, looking back to Eli for the first time since seeing the canyon. He looked at Eli with much the same stare. “Where would you like to begin?”

“What did you say about me to my parents?” Eli answered as a statement rather than a question. 

Thrawn looked at him for another full second and Eli decided he knew why the legends of the Chiss focused so much on the power of their eyes. The gaze deepened, but it wasn’t in a way Eli could pin down. Similar to the way he’d look at Eli just before making Eli leave that night. “I told them not to— _katachrisi_ ,” he asked.

Eli winced. “Abuse.”

“Thank you. I told them not to abuse you further. I said that I’ve seen how it affects you and that whatever benefit they believe comes from their treatment of you is rather in spite of them than because of them.” 

The gravel crunched beneath their boots as Eli let that declaration sink in. “You shouldn’t have said that.” 

“Anything less would have been to withhold information from those who may have been unaware of the truth,” Thrawn said. “I did not expect the conversation to end well, which, as I have said, is one reason I sent you away. Even so, they are your parents. I wanted to give them the chance.” 

“They already hated you. Being blunt like that was stupid,” Eli retorted. 

“I do not fear them. This is the better way. This way, you have no cause for doubt.”

Eli stopped in his tracks. “Excuse me?”

“Excuse you for what?” Thrawn’s tone betrayed total innocence of Eli’s rising anger.

“For not understanding your krayt spit,” Eli told him. 

Thrawn’s voice still didn’t change. “Krayt spit only applies when the speaker is aware that what they’re saying is nonsense. I am aware of no such concept.”

“Then for a brilliant thinker, you’re being pretty stupid. No cause for doubt? You went behind my back and insulted my parents to their faces. Why shouldn’t I doubt you now? What doubt are you even referring to?”

“I believe I've proven the depth of my interest in this.” Thrawn gestured at the assorted bruises still littering his body. 

Eli winced. He'd seen most of those marks before, but not usually at once. “I'm sorry. I'm— I'm really sorry. You shouldn't have tried to— You shouldn't have even come.” He hung his head and looked back to the canyon. “I'm such an idiot.”

“How did you reach that conclusion?” Thrawn asked. 

Eli groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It's not always about logic,” he said dismissively, waving his free hand once at Thrawn. 

“This is. Via what logic did you reach the conclusion that you are to blame?” 

“I was too scared of my own family to spend one week at home. I took my CO with me because I was scared, alright? I knew this would happen. I should have stopped it. I didn't and now you're hurt and they'll hate you more than ever and it's all my fault. It just is. I was stupid. Am. Dammit.” Eli couldn’t lift his eyes from staring at the dirt beneath their feet now. 

“Had you neglected to inform me of the possibility of xenophobia, that assessment may have been logical. However, you did inform me, and the decision to come was mine. Every action I have taken has been of my own volition. I asked you to leave that night, and I was fully informed of the possible consequences.” 

Thrawn started walking again as he kept talking. “My conversation with your parents had nothing to do with you, though you were the subject of discussion. I saw an action which was either the result of misinformation, incompetence, or malice. As long as there was a chance that the cause was simply misinformation, the only moral course of action was to inform them.”

“I should’ve known you'd make it about morals,” Eli spat. 

Thrawn’s eyebrows knitted together. “What do you think it’s about?”

“Survival.”

Thrawn only paused a moment before speaking again. “That has been true for many years, but things are different now. You are independent and your parents no longer hold power over you. Were you to be subject to prolonged exposure to this environment, especially alone, I would have acted differently. As it is, we are only here for a few more days, and I will be with you for the duration. I would accept any level of personal injury to ensure your wellbeing.” 

Eli snorted. “Protecting me isn't your job.” 

“Whom I speak with is not your decision; it’s mine, and so must the consequences be. To have included you would have been immoral.” Thrawn’s even speaking tone was beginning to grate on Eli’s nerves. 

He rose fingers as he went through the list. “My parents. My problem. My life. You don't get to come and decide things about how my parents raised me. They made me. So really, if you have any problems with them, you have them with me, too. You seem to like how I turned out. Either you're lying about that or you're wrong about them.” 

“I sought to speak with them openly so that I could make my opinion on this matter known. You are much more than your family’s parenting skills. They contributed to who you are today, but they did not make you, Eli. You did.”

Thrawn and Eli both kept walking, eyes toward the canyon, as Eli processed. “They love me,” he finally said. It was a pitifully weak argument. He sounded pathetic. Maybe he was. 

“I don’t doubt it,” Thrawn answered. “They are almost certainly of the mind that their actions are right and justified. Few people are motivated by the will to harm another. Most twist logic in their minds until it justifies any action taken. They are often unaware of the process.”

Eli lifted his arms to either side of him at the elbows, palms facing up. “How do you know either of us are immune to that then, if we wouldn’t even know it?” He lowered his arms again and held them closer to his core. “What if we’re the crazy ones, and my parents are in the right?” 

Thrawn was speaking as a teacher now. “No one is immune. I am aware of the possibility and thus adhere to a set of moral principles in order to avoid subjective error. To these principles, I check each decision.”

“How did you come up with the principles?” Eli asked.

“Thought over the course of my lifetime and study over the thoughts of everyone else’s.”

Eli shook his head with a grimace. “Mom said I only ever see good in people and that’s why someone will take advantage of me one day. I’d be too naive to know. I wasn’t sure about that but I sure as hell haven’t spent that long coming up with any set of moral principles, so maybe she’s right after all.” 

“I have never known you to be naive and I have certainly known you to look past the good in people. It was you who warned me of the xenophobia at Royal Imperial, when I would have been otherwise unprepared for it. No, Eli. You are not naive. Perhaps you have yet to develop a code for yourself, but you have the beginnings of one already, and are more than capable enough to enact it.”

He had a point about the academy, even if Eli was unwilling to accept the praise Thrawn was throwing his way. Eli still wasn’t convinced of his argument, though. It seemed so outlandish. “We’ve been talking like my parents are one person. They’re not. Dad’s the one hitting me—well, us, now. Mom never has. She’s in the clear.”

“Abuse is not always physical. Your mother abuses you in a different way; she enforces her wayward perception on you. Her belief that you are naive is but one example. I don’t know if she is aware of the falsehoods she spreads or not, but after seeing her, my thought is that she most likely is not. In her own mind, you are naive. There are likely other things, too—memories, perhaps, that she has twisted in her own mind and then made you believe as well.”

“Damn,” Eli muttered under his breath. “You’re right. There are. I thought I was just forgetful, or maybe crazy.”

Thrawn looked back to Eli, and Eli forced himself to hold the gaze. “No, Eli. You are sane.” Eli looked away and tried to hide the red coming to his face. 

“What do I do?” he asked.

“For the time being, I recommend we act as we have been. This trip only lasts a few more days and our priority ought to be safety. After that, what to do is solely up to you. They are your parents. I will offer advice when called for and support you in any decision.” 

“You know, this stuff… it runs in my family,” Eli said slowly. “You’ve met my Gramma on my Dad’s side. I don’t really think any of them know what they’re doing or how they’re treating you is wrong, really; it’s just how they grew up themselves. I would have been like that too. But I won’t. Not now.” 

He shut his eyes and breathed. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do, but I refuse to keep this cycle going any longer. If I ever have kids, they won’t be raised like this.” Opening his eyes again, Eli looked back to Thrawn. “And it’s all because of you.”

Thrawn held eye contact but shook his head slightly. “I don’t deserve credit for your decisions. If the cycle breaks, it will be because of you.”

“It will,” Eli said.

“I’m glad. I’m proud of you,” Thrawn answered. 

The sun was starting to set behind them. “It’s getting late. We need to head back,” Eli said, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun before remembering he’d brought sunglasses. 

“There is one other thing I need to discuss with you,” Thrawn said. 

“Name it,” Eli replied.

Thrawn didn’t pause. “You haven’t eaten in four days.”

Eli’s stomach clenched. “Not true,” he said defensively. “I’ve had dinner with my family every night. You’ve been there the whole time; you saw me.”

“Precisely. I saw you not eating,” Thrawn answered. “You have made a skill of playing with your food enough that no one notices. I noticed anyway.”

“Figures,” Eli muttered. 

“We’ve been over this,” Thrawn added. 

“It’s not that easy,” Eli argued.

“I didn’t say it was easy,” Thrawn answered. “I know it’s not. You still need the caloric units, and this still isn’t healthy.” 

Eli sighed. “I’ve made progress,” he offered. It sounded like a whine. Eli scrunched up his face in annoyance at himself. 

Thrawn nodded. “I’ve seen that, too. You have. You’re doing well, Eli. I wish only to help you where I can.” 

“It’s not like I actually need the units,” Eli argued. 

“You need them,” Thrawn answered. “Science.”

Eli rolled his eyes. Science was Thrawn’s go-to argument against any action he considered unhealthy. Like Eli cared whether or not he was being healthy about the whole thing. That wasn’t even the point. “Whatever.”

“What was your plan for eating tonight? It’s getting late,” Thrawn asked. The tone was casual, but both knew it was an argument. 

“Fine. We’ll pick something up on the way,” Eli relented. 

“Will you eat it?” Thrawn pressed. 

Eli groaned. “Will you give me a choice?”

“Not really.”

“You’re impossible,” Eli said with a small huff. They’d still argue over it later, he knew. Thrawn would still win. He almost always did. “And another thing: It’s your turn for music choice. What’ll it be?” 

Thrawn smiled. “Yours is fine. I find it interesting.”

“Interesting how?” Eli asked. 

“Music is art, Eli. Your choice of art reveals a representation of you. Just as the Chiss legends you chose to tell me when we first met told me much of your character, your music tastes show me different aspects of who you are.”

“What do you see?” Eli asked coyly. 

“Art,” Thrawn replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning Explanations  
> Child Abuse: Discussion of physical abuse and gaslighting  
> Xenophobia: Discussed  
> Eating Disorders: Anorexia; a character doesn't eat for four days and is confronted about it  
> If there are any warnings I haven't included and should have, or if you feel you need more information before reading, comment so I can fix it/tell you. ❤
> 
> Down here I'll reveal that when Eli was blasting music?? That was totally Trespassing by Adam Lambert in my head, you really can't convince me otherwise at this point XD


	6. Feeling Like A Nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Child abuse, xenophobia (more detail at end of chapter)

Eli woke up to the door opening. His mother. He sat up and darted his eyes to Thrawn and noted that the Chiss was ready with the sunglasses by the time she had a chance to enter. Why was she there? 

Breathe, Eli ordered himself. Adjust posture. Fix smile. Insert gleam in eyes. Breathe slowly; the heart rate will follow. The drill was almost mechanical. 

“Good morning, Eli!” she said as she left the door open and came closer. Ignoring Thrawn for now. Good.

“Morning!” he called back. She was sitting on his bed now, slightly on his toes. He moved them before they were noticed. His every movement brought his limbs closer. Open body posture, he reminded himself, and left his core exposed. 

“A heat wave is rolling in today,” his mother said conversationally. She did this sometimes. She didn’t mean any harm by it; she just wanted to talk was all. Having her in his room always threw him off guard though. Especially when he woke up to it. 

Eli widened his eyes and moved his head back a bit in casual surprise. “Better stay inside, then,” he said. Too stiff. Eli let his right arm prop him up while he made the rest of his muscles relax. Breathe. 

“Actually, about that,” his mother said. Eli’s chest tightened. So there was a reason. “Your father thinks it would be good for you to go with him today. You haven’t been around the business in a while now, and that is where your future is, after all.” 

The business. His future. A day alone with Dad. Eli wanted nothing more than to curl up underneath his covers until life went away. There was a major problem with all of it, of course. “But what about Thrawn?” 

From the hall came a voice. “Do you really think I’d ever leave that alien alone with my wife?” his father sneered as he walked into the room. Both parents in his room. Thrawn in the corner. Eli trapped. Breathe. “He’s coming too.” 

They wouldn’t be separated, at least. He didn’t have much of a choice, regardless. “When do we leave?” he asked. What time was it, anyway?

“Twenty minutes. Get moving,” his father said, and left. Probably about 6:10, then. 

“Do you want caf? I’ll make some,” his mother offered.

“Thanks, yeah,” Eli said. He could definitely use it. 

“I’ll go then,” his mother said, getting up. She left the door open. Eli bounded across the room silently to close it again. 

He sighed even as he ran to grab clothes. “So much for a peaceful last few days. Not like that was ever really a strong possibility,” he admitted.

Thrawn was moving around too now. “Indeed not. And yet, we don’t know yet whether this will be difficult or not. Your father may yet be congenial.”

Eli snorted. “Sure.”

—

The drive was thankfully silent. Maybe it would work out after all. Maybe. There was a catch somewhere. There had to be. Eli couldn’t find it. Maybe there wasn’t one? That couldn’t be right. 

Eli had no idea what to expect. 

When his father stopped the speeder, he stared straight ahead and made a declaration. “I won’t have an alien waltz through my livelihood.”

Eli’s breath caught in his throat. “But… you’re the one who brought him.” It came out as a whisper.

“I’m not leaving him with my wife and I’m not leaving him with my goods. He’ll stay here.”

Panic flooded him. His father couldn’t mean that. “We’re in the middle of a heat wave. You can’t!” Eli winced. Bad move. 

His father’s tone was deep. “Careful, boy,” he growled. Getting out of the speeder, he turned to Thrawn directly and placed his hands along the edge. “You step foot on my property and I’ll have you hauled off for the rest of your days. Though that may not be a lot,” he sneered, jerking his hands back up and stalking away. 

As Eli’s father walked ahead of him into the building, Eli turned to Thrawn sitting as calmly as ever in the back seat. “You’re going to melt,” Eli breathed, forehead creasing. There was very little he could do. 

“I will be fine, Eli,” Thrawn said. Maybe so, Eli thought, but which kind of ‘fine’ did he mean this time? Thrawn seemed clammy and Eli winced when he realized that Thrawn wasn’t sweating. Chiss probably weren’t used to regulating body heat like that. 

“Do you have any credits on you?” Eli asked. Maybe there was something he could do after all, even if it wasn’t much. He fumbled with a wallet in his back pocket. “Doesn’t matter. Take these. There’s some Imperial credits and some Lysatran ones. Most people take both around here.” He shoved a fistful of the papers at Thrawn. “If you can, find somewhere cool, and if you can’t, at least buy yourself a hat or something. And water. People here aren’t going to be much happier about you than my parents are. I’m sorry. I wish I could stop this. I… I don’t know what else to do.” 

“You’ve done more than enough. Thank you for the credits and for your advice. If you have any trouble, know that I have my comlink.” 

Eli nodded. “If you think you’re going to pass out or something, call. Or if someone tries to hurt you. I mean it. Come in if you have to. I can get Dad angry at me instead probably. Don’t die.”

“I will endeavor not to,” Thrawn with a small smile. “You had best be off. We will see each other again at the end of the day.” 

Eli followed after his father. 

Most of what his father wanted him for was accounting. The records were complex enough that they could be a pain to deal with, and no one had really been able to replace Eli as far as efficiency went. The numbers calmed him down some. He understood them much better than he understood much else. 

Datapad in hand, he accompanied his father on a tour of the facility. Much of the time, there were others around them, but not always. Sometimes they were alone. One such time, Eli’s father turned to him more fully. 

“You belong here, son,” he said, reaching toward Eli with his right hand outstretched. Eli’s muscles clenched up all over his body, and his breathing stopped. He made himself stand still. His father’s palm made contact with his shoulder. 

Breathe. Carefully, Eli drew a shallow breath, and just as carefully, he breathed it back out. He could keep that up, right? It was a compliment. What the hell was Eli even afraid of? “Thanks, Dad,” he said, and forced a small smile. 

“You being away is hard on all of us, you know,” his father continued. “The business. Your mother. Me.” 

Eli could see all the ways that could go. Thrawn. His rank. Coming home. He gulped, but hid it. “Yeah,” he said. 

He turned the conversation back to numbers as quickly as possible. 

The hours went by. It wasn’t that bad. Even when they were alone, his father was acting just fine. Eli worried about Thrawn, but calmed himself by remembering that Thrawn had the ability to call him if something happened, and he could take care of himself anyway. 

They were alone again in the main warehouse, by the tiny desk at the front door. His father stopped again and gestured widely. “This’ll all be yours when you come home, Eli. This is the pathway of your future.” 

Eli froze. He’d hoped they wouldn’t have to have this conversation yet. Of course, they would. Eli considered playing it off, but rejected the thought. It would only make things worse later. He didn’t have to say anything for sure. He just had to put forth the idea. 

Breathing in deeply, Eli tried to look his father in the eyes, but found himself looking just behind. “About that, I… I don’t know anymore. There might be other paths. Options. I like working for the Empire. I think, maybe… there may be a future with them, too.” 

His father’s face hardened. Eli’s gaze went down to the ground. “It’s the alien, isn’t it?” his father said, softly at first, but growing steadily louder. “He’s turning you against me. He’s confusing you. You’re siding with him again. Or don’t you remember that this is your family’s business? Our legacy. Your only future. You have a duty to your mom and me. Don’t you go and defend no organization, no Empire, no alien above that.”

Always binary options. Always assumed answers. His parents kept saying he was confused; he agreed. He was definitely confused. 

And yet, he kept opening his mouth. 

Now, he only winced. 

“Don’t you have anything to say?” his father prompted. Eli didn’t answer. Confused was definitely the right word. He couldn’t say anything for sure. Even if he wanted to, he wasn’t sure a voice would even come. 

“We raised you. You owe us, you ungrateful bastard.” He grabbed the nearest object. It was a metal mesh tape dispenser. Eli couldn’t move. He certainly couldn’t breathe. 

In a flash of movement, his father scraped his left cheek with the dispenser. The serrated cutting edge raked a few centimeters below his ear. Eli’s eyes watered. He didn’t move. 

“Stop crying. You’re too old to cry,” his father scoffed. The cut stung too sharply. His eyes wouldn’t stop. “I said, stop,” his father ordered. Eli only flinched.

The second blow was square to his chest. Eli stumbled back two steps and fell to his knees. He wrapped his arms around his legs and pressed his back against the side of the desk. 

The mesh dispenser clattered to the ground next to him. His father’s boot collided with his shin, repeatedly. “You’re weak, Eli. You’re always weak.” The sentences were punctuated with kicks. “I try to give you a backbone, but will you ever learn? You can’t stay away. You need me. You’re pathetic on your own.” 

Eli didn’t doubt it. He sucked in enough air to speak. “I—”

The boot hit his head that time. “I’m not finished!” his father bellowed. “Supply is the only thing you’ve ever been good at. All I want is to give you a job you can actually keep, and you go and listen to aliens who dazzle you with delusions!”

His father only ever wanted what was best for him, even if it didn’t always seem that way. Thrawn just needed a translator, really. He was nice sometimes, sure, but could he really offer what his own family could? Eli was always confused. He really couldn’t think for himself. Why had he ever thought he could? Numbers were what he knew, not strategy. He wasn’t like Thrawn. He’d let himself be blinded. 

All his father wanted was for him to see things straight again. “You’re right,” Eli got out. His throat kept constricting. 

“You’re damn right, I am,” came his father’s answer. The boot stopped. “What have you got to say for yourself?” 

“I’m sorry,” Eli croaked. 

“I forgive you,” his father said. “Now get the hell up.” 

Eli separated himself from his body so he couldn’t feel as much of the pain, and stood. His legs almost gave out from underneath him. His face was streaked with tears. His neck was wet on the left side from the cut. 

His father scoffed when he saw him. “Go clean yourself up,” he ordered. Eli wiped away the blood and tears at the nearest refresher. The cut had clotted at least. His legs threatened to buckle underneath him, but he stood despite. 

When he got back, everything was fine again. The mesh dispenser was back in its place. He and his father spent the last hours of the day together. In the back of his mind, Eli thought about the question of his future. For all his father had said, and for all he’d said his father was right, he was still mostly confused. He had a feeling he would be for a long time yet. 

At the end of the day, his father let him be the one to lock the doors behind them. When Eli saw Thrawn again, he scanned the Chiss as thoroughly as he could without being noticed for signs of heatstroke. Thrawn still wasn’t sweating, and his skin still seemed clammy, and his movements weren’t as rigidly precise, and he reacted a few seconds late to everything. He’d actually bought the hat at least. 

At least he was alive. They both were. They’d almost made it. Only a drive home and an evening left, and then only one more day. 

“Stay out of trouble?” his father sneered at Thrawn as he got in the speeder. 

“Indeed,” Thrawn replied. He didn’t speak further, but his eyes were on Eli. They scanned up and down his body the same way Eli’s had just scanned Thrawn’s. Eli’s face warmed. No doubt the bruising had already started. 

He wasn’t looking forward to explaining them to Thrawn. 

When they got home, Eli’s mother had dinner waiting, so there was no time for them to talk immediately or for Eli to try to cool Thrawn down. He seemed like he’d been alright thus far. Maybe he’d stayed inside somewhere during most of the day. At least he wasn’t outside anymore. 

The conversation was almost pleasant, with the majority of the time spent on things his father had shown him. It was like Eli had never mentioned not coming home. His father was very forgiving that way. 

As soon as he could after dinner, Eli ushered Thrawn into his room and left again just long enough to quietly get a towel out of the linen closet and dampen it in the refresher sink. Going back to his room, he shut the door and moved to hand Thrawn the towel. “It’s cold,” he explained. “Really you should just get wrapped in a whole sheet or something, but this was all I could grab without Mom noticing.” 

He stopped. Thrawn was holding something too. “Are those… bacta patches?” he asked. 

Thrawn nodded. “You don’t seem to have any here so I bought them earlier today. It seemed likely you’d need them by evening.” His eyes flitted to the cut on Eli’s cheek. “I would seem to have been right.” 

Eli winced. “Well, you getting cool is more important right now anyway.”

Thrawn took the towel and threw it around his shoulders, but proceeded to hold out the patches again. “Do you need help applying them?”

“I’m fine, really. I deserved it.” 

“How so?” Thrawn asked, forehead creasing slightly. 

Eli grunted indignantly and rolled his eyes. “I knew you’d do this. I was the one out of line, alright? It made sense for him to be upset.” Thrawn was awfully quick to cast blame on his parents. Did it ever even occur to him that maybe Eli deserved it at times? He wasn’t perfect. Thrawn had to recognize that. 

Thrawn didn’t respond for a few seconds. He was clearly mulling something over, but what, Eli couldn’t tell. Eventually, the creased on his forehead cleared and he spoke in a softer tone that held all the same authority. “Regardless, you must treat your injuries now.” He held out the bacta patches one more time. 

Eli took them and felt around his cheek for the right place before applying. “Thanks,” he muttered. The words were out before he could hold them back: “Sometimes I feel like I just don’t know what to think.”

Thrawn nodded slowly and looked him in the eyes. That same “Thrawn” look was there—the one he used when looking at Eli sometimes, that Eli could never quite place. “There will be time to think,” he said at last. “For now, you ought to sleep.” 

Eli found he couldn’t hold the gaze, and dropped it. He started to climb into bed. “One left,” he said. One day, and one that would be filled with packing. They’d almost made it through. All that was left was to leave again. Relief flooded Eli, but just as swiftly, guilt over feeling relief followed. 

“Yes,” Thrawn said softly. “Sleep, Eli,” he repeated. 

It took a while, but Eli did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning Explanations  
> Xenophobia: Thrawn is left outside in a heatwave due to thinly veiled spite.  
> Child abuse: Gaslighting, physical violence including a cut (little blood is mentioned) and repeated kicks.  
> If you feel you need more information before reading, or you feel I haven't mentioned something that I should, please comment so I can fix the issue.


	7. Someday I'll Be

_Life forms are, above all else, complex. Their actions, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs do not always reconcile to each other—in fact, they very seldom do. The warrior seeks to discover these areas and reorder them to each other, even while knowing that complete success in the endeavor may not be possible. Those who remain unaware of discrepancies are often discomforted by them when they arise, and at that point will seek either to remedy the paradox, or simply ignore that it is there. The latter has chosen the path of less resistance. The former is driven to excellence. Excellence takes time._

Somehow, they’d made it. As soon as they were off Lysatra headed back to the Bloodcrow, Thrawn took off the sunglasses and Eli was the one to disdainfully throw them in the nearest trash receptacle. 

Lysatra to the core worlds meant a lot of layovers. It’d be another three days before things truly went back to normal, and until then, Eli was stuck one-on-one with Thrawn. 

From a certain perspective, he didn’t mind that. From another, being alone with Thrawn gave him plenty of time to worry Thrawn would bring up everything that had happened in the last week, and Eli wasn’t really looking for an argument. 

As he sat next to Thrawn, though, on a crowded transport ship hurling away from his parents and toward Captain Rossi, Eli ended up being the one to bring it up first. “I’m sorry,” he bit off quickly. 

Thrawn looked at him blankly. “For what?” he asked.

Eli threw up his hands, palms facing up and fingers outstretched. “For everything, I guess. For the way everyone treats you all over this Empire for something you can’t control. For my parents, especially. Well, specifically? For bringing you. I shouldn’t have. I’m… I’m really sorry.” His stomach churned and he checked for the nearest trash receptacle to him. It was pretty far away. 

“As I have said, the choice to come was ultimately mine. You did your part in informing me of what may occur, and yet I chose to come despite. I do thank you for your concern over my treatment; it is kind of you to take such an interest. However, I believe in worrying about me, you overlook yourself.”

“What are you talking about?” Eli asked, pressing his back against the seat and slouching. Thrawn always seemed to make these talks about him somehow. 

“Certainly, this has not been the most comfortable week for me. However, the incidents directed at me are exceeded by the ones directed at you. I stand by what I told your parents on the night I asked you to leave.” 

Abuse. The word haunted Eli. Did it apply to him? He'd heard terrible stories of child abuse, of course, but his situation seemed so normal next to those. These parents loved him, even if maybe sometimes they weren't the best at showing it. 

Those words from Thrawn haunted him too. The idea that abusers didn't always know that what they did was abuse. What was real? So many of his memories conflicted. So many of his values did, too. “Family is everything.” “People should get to choose their own futures.” “Aliens are dangerous.” “All beings deserve respect.” “Thrawn is my friend.” 

Nothing fit together anymore. And Eli had no idea what to trust. Or whom. 

“I, just… I don't know,” he whispered, eyes wide and stuck staring at the floor in front of him. 

Next to him, his peripheral vision caught Thrawn’s nod. “I know. I'm not going to force you to choose. These decisions must be yours, and yours alone. I stand by what I said: I will offer advice when called for, and I will support you in any decision.” 

“Thanks,” Eli muttered. Thrawn talked like that was his obvious role. He was the only one who saw it that way. His parents both wanted to make the choices for him, and Eli wasn't convinced he could make them himself. 

“Eli,” Thrawn said after a few seconds. He waited until Eli looked back to him. “Please recognize that, whatever information I may choose not to share, I endeavor to tell you as close to the objective truth as possible. I don't expect you to trust me outside of what is due our respective ranks—at the very least, not yet. I hope to earn that trust in time. In turn, please recognize that I trust you. 

“No one is all good or all bad. Life forms are, above all else, complex. That includes me, your parents, and you.” 

Eli sighed heavily and rubbed his palm from his forehead down his face in thought. As long as they were on the subject, he may as well ask. “Are you going to report him?” 

Thrawn shook his head. “I will not do anything that may reflect badly back onto you.” 

“Thanks,” Eli said, relief flooding him. If Thrawn had gone through with reporting abuse toward two imperial officers, it wouldn't have been good for his family. Even if Thrawn was an alien. But it wouldn't have been so bad that his parents wouldn't have gone right back to the same points of view, and with nothing to divert them, their anger would have gone to Eli alone. 

Eli tensed. The word again. He'd used it in his own thoughts as a matter of course. They certainly had abused Thrawn, anyway. But… they'd treated Eli much the same in a lot of ways. Eli glanced at Thrawn’s fading bruises out of the corner of his eye. If he thought it was abuse to do that to Thrawn, why wasn't it abuse when it was him? Did family tie make it acceptable? Another conflicting value. 

Around Thrawn, all the way from the academy to the Blood Crow, Eli had trusted his own thoughts implicitly. They always lined up with what Thrawn said. There were never these kinds of questions. As soon as he got home… that was when he suddenly didn't know. Everyone said different things. Eli could never tell what was real at home. With Thrawn, for better or worse, he always seemed to know. 

It could still be a trick, Eli reasoned. Maybe he believed all Thrawn’s lies and it was his parents reminding him what was real. If his parents were right, the whole thing was almost moot. According to them, he couldn't choose for himself anyway. If Thrawn was to be believed, Eli was… capable somehow. Eli didn't feel capable. 

Was Thrawn serious about trusting him? To be fair, he’d kind of had to. Eli could have mistranslated and no one would ever have known. Except he hadn't. Did that make him trustworthy? He tried to be a decent person. Didn't everyone? He wasn't special or anything. 

“I can't decide,” he said at last. 

Thrawn leaned from his waist almost imperceptibly closer as he spoke. “You needn't rush to. You have time. I have no intention of leaving you, if you'll continue to have me. These things take time to decide. You're doing nothing wrong.” The look was back. Like he knew something Eli didn't. Which, Eli reminded himself, was generally true. But why did the look seem so different than Thrawn’s other various stares? Why did Eli get a special one? Why did it seem almost… comforting? 

“You're way too nice to me. I've never been on your level. I'm just the translator.” 

“I see more than that. I always have, from the day we met. All life forms are complex, and all are worthy of respect. You deserve nothing less.” The look persisted, and when he finished speaking, Thrawn added the hint of a small smile. 

Eli looked away. “I'm not sure about that either, but I guess for now I'll take it,” he said. 

He had a lot to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I highly recommend reading [**A Warm Embrace**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11099373) as resolution to this series. 
> 
> Any comments or critiques you have on this chapter as well as the series as a whole are warmly welcomed. I'm very much open to using this fic as a jumping off place to discuss writing craft or the content I wrote on. 
> 
> Thank you to all who have stuck with me throughout this series. In many ways, writing it has proved useful for me, and from your comments, I gather that it has been useful in some ways to you as well. I am glad if my writing could affect you in any way, and I am honored to be worthy of your time and investment in reading. Thank you. ❤


End file.
